LAN low transfer rates

anxie

I have a problem with transferring files between two computers at home and I am hoping that someone will have some advice.
Specifically the issue is the speed of transfer. I am using a bog standard Netopia wireless router from eircom as bundled with the fixed line broadband service.
I have a latop running Windows Vista Home SP2
and a desktop running Windows XP PRO SP3
both are wirelessly connected to the web via the netopia router.

I wanted to dump alot of files from the laptop to the desktop as I think the laptop HD is going to start failing soon.
However, the transfer rate was coming up at 30 KB and less..
Frustrated by the long wait to backup mostly useless files, I looked about in the Netopia router settings, but couldn't see anything to help local traffic speeds. So I reconnected the laptop directly to the router with an ethernet cable and switched off wireless on the laptop thinking that half duplex might be at fault.... I also shut down any software which was using any networking just in case it was sending useless requests to the router and adding to congestion, but now the transfer rate is 15KB/sec at best..
:-(

any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong?
Should I be setting something in Windows to ensure that LAN traffic speed improves?

update: it just went up to 16KB /sec :mad:

anxie

michael2121

my suggestion is to connect both directly together with the network cable. if the speeds are still slow then it is a computer issue.

from there check to see if moving a 1gb file or larger from one place on the laptop to another is slow. If it is that would suggest you might be right on the HDD failing get the most essential files off onto an external hdd or to the other pc and hope the rest can be transferred at that slow rate. (only have one transfer window going at any given time)

If not. try on the PC to see if its slow. If thats all fine I suggest External HDD for now as one of your network ports might be faulty and you want to save those files asap before the HDD fails.

fionny

Yes as suggested wire the 2 with a network cable directly together, you should get high speeds that way.

To be honest until I upgraded to a gigabit router I was never able to get solid speeds especially when using wireless!

anxie

thanks for the input guys.
I have a crossover cable *somewhere* in the attic.
I'll check it tomorrow and see if I get into Mb land

anxie

mordeith

A standard cable should do the trick. Crossover cables aren't necessary on newish machines. I linked my 5 year old XP pc to Windows 7 laptop with a straight cable no bother

anxie

Thanks mordeith, and shame on me for forgetting that I could just do this with a standard cable, it's been that way for some time now :-(
I would still be interested if someone could point me in the direction of what config changes should be checked/changed to improve the wireless LAN speeds.

anxie